Carbon Sinks in Crisis — It Looks Like the World’s Largest Rainforest is Starting to Bleed Greenhouse Gasses

Back in 2005, and again in 2010, the vast Amazon rainforest, which has been aptly described as the world’s lungs, briefly lost its ability to take in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its drought-stressed trees were not growing and respiring enough to, on balance, draw carbon out of the air. Fires roared through the forest, transforming trees into kindling and releasing the carbon stored in their wood back into the air.

This summer, a similar switch-off appears to be happening again in the Amazon. A severe drought is again stressing trees even as it is fanning wildfires to greater intensity than during 2005 and 2010. Early satellite measures seem to indicate that something even worse may be happening — the rainforest and the lands it inhabits are now being hit so hard by a combination of drought and fire that the forest is starting to bleed carbon back. This gigantic and ancient repository of atmospheric carbon appears to have, at least over the past two months, turned into a carbon source.

(High levels of carbon dioxide, in the range of 410 to 412 parts per million, and methane in the atmosphere over the Amazon rainforest during July and August of 2016 is a preliminary indicator that the great forest may be, for this period, acting as a carbon source. Image source: The Copernicus Observatory.)

Carbon Sinks Can’t Keep Up

Though the story of human-forced climate change starts with fossil-fuel burning, which belches heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, sadly, it doesn’t end there. As that burning causes the Earth to heat up, it puts stress on the places that would, under normal circumstances, draw carbon out of the atmosphere. The carbon-absorbing oceans, boreal forests, and great equatorial rainforests all feel the sting of that heat. This warming causes the oceans to be able to hold less carbon in their near-surface waters and sets off droughts and fires that can reduce a forest’s ability to take in that carbon.

In the context of the global cycle of carbon entering and being removed from the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and large, healthy forests serve to take in greenhouse gasses. We call these carbon sinks, and throughout the past 10,000 years of our current epoch, the Holocene, they’ve helped to keep these gasses, and by extension, Earth’s temperatures, relatively stable.

(Without the ability of forests, soils and oceans to take in carbon — to act as carbon sinks — global atmospheric CO2 would have already risen well above 500 parts per million by 2009 due to fossil-fuel burning. These sinks are a helpful mitigating factor to the insult of human carbon emissions, but if they become too stressed, they can become sources of carbon instead. Image source: IPCC/CEF.)

However, for a long time now human fossil-fuel emissions have far exceeded the ability of the world’s carbon sinks to draw in excess carbon and keep greenhouse gas levels stable. Though these sinks have taken in more than half of the great volume of carbon emitted from fossil-fuel burning, the total portion of heat-trapping CO2 has risen from 280 ppm to more than 400 ppm. The oceans acidified as they strained beneath the new carbon overburden. And the forests took in this carbon even as they fought off expanding deforestation. As a result of all the excess carbon now in the atmosphere, the Earth has warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius above 1880s levels. And combined with the already strong stress imposed by clear-cutting and slash and burn agriculture, the added heat is a great strain on an essential global resource.

In this tragic context of heat, drought, ocean acidification and deforestation, it appears that the grace period that the Earth’s carbon sinks have given us to get our act together on global warming is coming to an end. Heating the Earth as significantly as we have is causing these sinks to start to break down — to be able to draw in less carbon, as was the case with the Amazon rainforest in 2005 and 2010. At these points in time, the sink was carbon-neutral. It was no longer providing us with the helpful service of drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in trees or soil. But, more ominously, in 2016, it appears that the Amazon may also to be starting to contribute carbon back to the atmosphere.

(High surface methane readings over the Amazon in excess of 2,000 parts per billion is a drought and wildfire signature. It is also a signal that the rainforest during this period was emitting more carbon than it was taking in. Image source: The Copernicus Observatory.)

After each of these brief periods of failing to draw down carbon in 2005 and 2010, the Amazon carbon sink switched back on and began to function again for a time. But by 2015 and 2016, record global temperatures had again sparked a terrible drought in the Amazon region. According to NASA officials, the new drought was the worst seen since at least 2002 and was sparking worse fire conditions than during 2005 and 2010 — the last times the Amazon’s carbon sink switched off. In July of 2016, the Guardian reported:

“Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season have set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon,” Morton said in a statement. The Brazilian states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará are reportedly at the highest risk.

Per NASA’s Amazon fire forecast, the wildfire risk for July to October now exceeds the risk in 2005 and 2010 — the last time the region experienced severe drought and wildfires raged across large swaths of the rainforest. So far, the Amazon has seen more fires through June 2016 than in previous years, which NASA scientists said was another indicator of a potentially rough wildfire season.

(Extensive wildfires over the southern Amazon and Brazil coincide with apparent atmospheric methane and CO2 spikes. Indicator that the Amazon carbon sink is experiencing another period of failure. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

At the same time that drought and related wildfires were starting to tear through the Amazon, atmospheric carbon monitors like the The Copernicus Observatory were picking up the signal of a carbon spike above the Amazon with methane levels higher than 2,000 ppb (which is often a drought and wildfire signature) and carbon dioxide levels in the range of 41o to 412 ppm. It was a spike comparable to those over industrial regions of the world like eastern China, the U.S. and Europe.

In context, these Amazon carbon spikes are occurring at a time of record atmospheric CO2 increases. For the first seven months of 2016, the average increase in CO2 versus 2015 was 3.52 ppm. 2015’s overall rate of CO2 increase in the range of 3.1 ppm year-on-year was the fastest annual increase ever recorded by NOAA and the Mauna Loa Observatory. So far this year, the rate of atmospheric gain in this key greenhouse gas is continuing to rise — this in the context of carbon spikes over a region that should be drawing in CO2, not spewing it out.

Griffin

So me ever seeing sub-400ppm on the Keeling Curve ever again is entirely dependent upon human efforts with free-air carbon capture at this point. Sobering.
Thanks for another educational post Robert. Even the grim news is worth knowing.

1. The most important is rapid mitigation which means rapid reduction to near zero greenhouse gas emissions globally (less than 500 million tons per year from humans). There’s not way to capture 13 billion tons of carbon out of the air each year.

2. Atmospheric capture might achieve somewhere near 600-1.5 billion tons per year given what we know currently and above and beyond the behavior of the Earth’s carbon sinks.

3. These sinks can help you by contributing to taking down excess carbon (which they still are doing now to a certain extent, even if some sinks are behaving as net neutral or as sources at times). If you get enough warming, you end up with an issue where the sinks act as net sources and that puts you further behind the 8 ball.

So in order for you to see below 400 ppm again in your lifetime we have to first get to near zero human carbon emissions, then start pulling carbon out of the air by land management and/or other activities, and hope that the carbon sinks don’t start emitting enough carbon to exceed atmospheric capture.

In a relatively bad feedback scenario, the sinks emit enough carbon to about equal the human carbon reduction activities. In the worst case, the sink feedbacks can only be partially mitigated by human atmospheric carbon capture.

It’s worth noting that some of the current RCP projections assume that carbon sinks will remain healthy enough to draw down a substantial portion of excess carbon. This is particularly true in the RCP 2.6 and RCP 4.5 scenarios. It’s worth noting that we are now passing the RCP 2.6 window at approx 490 ppm CO2e this year and next. RCP 4.5 is the next threshold at 650 ppm CO2e.

IPCC assumes that RCP 2.6 would limit warming to 1.5 C this Century. This would help the carbon sinks behave more. However, we will probably see a near 1.2 C annual temperature average for 2016 as we cross the RCP 2.6 threshold. My view is that 490 ppm CO2e initial even if maintained through 2100 results in 1.7 to 2.1 C warming through that period. This would tend to push the carbon sinks a bit harder.

RCP 4.5 at 650 ppm CO2e, in IPCC’s view, is enough to warm the Earth by 2.4 C through 2100. My view is that number is probably closer to 2.9 to 3.1 C.

These temperature and forcing ranges, in my view, also imply a good deal of glacial response which may mitigate atmospheric and surface ocean warming for a temporary period — reducing warming by as much as 0.2 to 1 C for a number of decades. This may help to preserve some of the carbon sinks functioning. But related ocean stratification would tend to hamper the ocean’s ability to take in carbon and strong related storms may negatively impact forests.

As we get to RCP 6 and RCP 8.5, IPCC’s respective data appears to assume that carbon sink response will be less helpful in mitigating the long-term trend.

It’s also worth noting that given the energy sources plugged in to the RCP 2.6 scenario — that particular scenario appears to have assumed a peak in oil supply by mid century. All the IPCC scenarios seem to see biofuels being the largest renewable energy source. These scenarios also seem to assume that wind and solar will only grow slowly.

My view is that the scenarios as the currently stand are somewhat fossil fuel centric and do not represent the potential that an energy switch from to wind, solar, storage, and mixed biofuels provides. The other point is that the scenarios appear to me to be a bit optimistic.

RCP 8.5 shows 1370 ppm CO2e by 2100. That’s 2.2 doublings of CO2e forcing by that time. This scenario assumes 4.9 C warming. But Charney sensitivity alone would imply an approximate 6-7 C warming by 2100 under that forcing as a result.

What the RCP scenarios also imply is that economic growth that is in any way tied to fossil fuels is a bad prospect for the climate. And the message that we should be sending to growth-minded politicians is that you simply can’t do it on fossil fuel use of any proportion without wrecking the climate.

So the issue for all of us, really, is how fast can we stop burning fossil fuels. And, after that, how well can we manage a large-scale atmospheric carbon reduction strategy on a global basis. In my view, this is the sane path forward.

Griffin

Update on the situation at the Flower Garden Banks sanctuary.
“According to Dr. Steven DiMarco of Texas A&M University, a month ago the area over the banks had already become highly stratified. Lower depths where the reef community thrives were not able to ventilate respired carbon dioxide and obtain fresh oxygen from surface water mixing. Dr. DiMarco vocalized the idea of a potential positive feedback: as more sensitive organisms begin to die in the lower oxygen water, the respiration from the decay of these organism further depletes oxygen levels to even more critical levels. No surface nutrients indicative of eutrophication were found during this previous survey, although it is possible that has changed.”https://reefs.com/2016/08/04/update-continuing-flower-garden-banks-mass-mortality/

Andy_in_SD

Adapting to sea level rise requires trade-offs – and money. Imperial Beach, is one of the poorest coastal communities in Southern California, will need to decide whether to prioritize the economic benefits of tourism and beach recreation over maintaining the ecological value of beach and preserving existing flora and fauna, versus simply protecting buildings and property along the coast.

In many beachfront communities, you have a number of oceanfront properties. As erosion and mild sea level rise has set in, some of the wealthier homeowners have decided to build up the dunes in front of their homes or to add a bulkhead. As a result, the action of large waves at high tide is deflected around that property and into the neighboring ones — increasing erosion there and resulting in an added threat to the nearby property that does not have this added defense.

I think some communities will have the resource to fight sea level rise at first. The others who do not will be faced with the tough prospects of property loss and retreat early on. But the net effect will be to turn some regions into peninsulas and islands as the other communities retreat or are basically washed away.

One more time: Sand, the basis for so much of nature and hydrology, for concrete.

‘Is Shanghai’s Appetite for Sand Killing China’s Biggest Lake? ‘

Times are good for Fey Wei Dong. A genial, middle-aged businessman based in Hangzhou, Fey says he is raking in the equivalent of $225,000 a year from trading in the humblest of commodities: sand.

I met Fey recently in a fishing village on Poyang Lake, China’s biggest freshwater lake and an essential haven for millions of migratory birds and several endangered species. The village is not much more than a tiny collection of ramshackle houses and battered wooden docks. It is dwarfed by a flotilla, anchored just offshore, of colossal dredges and barges, hulking metal flatboats with industrial cranes jutting from their decks. Fey comes here regularly to buy boatloads of raw sand dredged from Poyang’s bottom. He resells it to builders in booming Shanghai who need it to make concrete. The demand is voracious. In the last decade, Shanghai has built more high-rises than there are in all of New York City and added miles of road and other infrastructure. “My sand helped build the Shanghai Pudong airport,” Fey brags.

While we talked, Fey ambled down the waterfront to a wrinkled fisherwoman sitting in a wooden skiff and bought a plastic bag full of crayfish to take home. After he left, I asked the woman, who did not want her name published, how the sand trade is working out for her. “The boats are destroying our fishing areas,” she said. The dredging destroys fish breeding grounds, muddies the water, and tears up her nets…

Genomik

Olympic opening ceremonies took on climate change! Great news. Glad they stepped up.

“Fernando Meirelles, who directed the Opening Ceremony, tweeted beforehand that he expected Donald Trump not to approve of the event for many reasons, including its multiculturalism. No word on Trump, but this guy sure seemed upset:”

June

Yes, I was delighted to see that they gave such prominance to it, showing a number of great graphics. With an estimated 1 billion people watching, they took full advantage of the educational opportunity.

Cate

I don’t want to be a killjoy, but I’ll be a fan when the Olympics go green. The carbon footprint of that ceremony alone must have been huge—-not to mention the energy load and carbon output of the Games themselves from start to finish. That ceremony could even look like a cynical exercise—elaborate window-dressing, a desperate attempt to make the entire creaking machinery of the Olympics look current.

We’re not fooled. We see you, Rio, Brazil, Amazon. And our hearts are breaking for you.

Cate, you are seeing the true picture here. The entire international sports competition world is bordering upon the insane.

For the Olympics, specifically, the obscenely opulent opening ceremonies are just the thin edge of the wedge. Using the excuse of creating good sports facilities and improving regional infrastructure all over the world is plain silly. Consider the state of the facilities built in Greece, of all places – totally gone to seed.

Infrastructure, if needed, should just be built.

For the Olympics, if they are to continue, there should be a few facilities selected and maintained and re-used for both summer and winter games – couple in Europe, couple in NA, couple somewhere in Asia perhaps.

Not sure about Europe, but in North America, in the 1950’s and ’60’s, most competition was at the national level. Competitors often travelled by train, of all things! Only top-seeded competitors got to fly around to compete internationally. Now, scores of hopefuls also participate in events all over the world, frequently.

One of the items I consider most ironic in all this, is Winter Olympic competitors promoting the SOS (Save Our Snow) or the POW (Protect Our Winters) campaigns.

These people not only fly all over the Northern hemisphere in winter for their training and competitions – they go to the southern hemisphere in our summer to continue.

I know teen-age hopefuls in Montreal who go to the Andes (Argentina) in July or August for training camps and junior competitions. Just who do they think is burning up all their snow?

On the other hand, the Olympic opening ceremony talked about climate change, and likely hundreds of millions of people saw it. The climate change deniers are calling it a “lecture” and are upset…what a shame.

So, while the Olympics certainly created some CO2 (a trivial amount compared to a day of business as usual) they made up for it in raising consciousness, I think.

Designers are talking about electric airplanes, and ship designers are talking about a return to sailing ships. These innovations would allow worldwide transport of people and goods without greatly harming the climate, I think. With solar energy and electric airplanes, we could hold the Olympics without harming the climate.

Suppose airplanes had modular replaceable battery packs, and took shorter hops? That would make electric airplanes possible right away, even with the lower power density of batteries compared to fuels, and allow for better battery packs in the future. Maybe put the battery packs on wheels, like a small truck. Just drive the battery pack into the plane to put it in place.

Hmmm…electric airplanes could also be run like plug in electric hybrid cars. Modular pre-charged battery packs could be swapped in, and the airplanes could also have electric generators and a supply of biofuels, permanently on board for emergencies and range extension.

Very efficient electric airliners, biofuel/electric hybrids, propeller driven, flying a little slower, could be carbon neutral. For the very longest routes, biofuel tanks could replace the battery packs, for increased range.

Perhaps some sports administrations could look at the solutions from the perspective of Australia. Remoteness and travel costs have always been a problem for Australian athletes in all sports. Eventually, someone was overwhelmed by commonsense and established an Australian base facility for athletes in Europe. Which cut down the amount of travel needed during competition “season” for various sports.http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/european_training_centre/about

In my view, this is a huge win for the climate debate. It’s tough to deny climate change when it’s featured at the Olympics. I think Cate’s comments and concerns RE changing the international sports reliance on fossil fuels is absolutely valid. But removing fossil fuel reliance is a civilization-wide issue here folks. And the first step to response is a global awareness that there needs to be a response.

Griffin

Robert. After reading this post for the fourth time, I must say that this is top notch reporting.
What you are writing about here is so massively important. I would say that this is the real story of importance regarding current events on the South American continent. I mean this is a huge deal fr all of humanity’s future!!
If only it could garner a fraction of the attention afforded to the “games”.

Cate

Top-drawer report, Robert, and perfect timing, with all eyes on Brazil!

This article reports on a study into the possible role of boreal forests in mitigating climate change. Apologies if this is a duplicate post—this appeared originally in The Conversation. Much to ponder here—wroth a read.

“In a recent paper, my colleagues and I set out to make a map of how climate change might influence tree growth across the entire continent of North America. To do this, we dug into historical records of tree growth over the period 1900–1950 collected by many dedicated field ecologists over the decades and deposited in the International Tree Ring Data Bank….

“Our models suggest that most of our forests will be growing more slowly in the future….(This) will…feed back into climate change itself. As global warming causes trees to absorb less carbon, there will be more carbon left in the air to cause faster warming, thus creating an accelerating cycle.”

– Zillow is the leading real estate and rental marketplace dedicated to empowering consumers with data, inspiration and knowledge

Climate Change and Housing: Will a Rising Tide Sink all Homes?

If sea levels rise as much as climate scientists predict by the year 2100, almost 300 U.S. cities would lose at least half their homes, and 36 U.S. cities would be completely lost.
One in eight Florida homes would be underwater, accounting for nearly half of the lost housing value nationwide.
…
Typically when we talk about “underwater” homes, we are generally referring to negative equity. But there is, of course, a more literal way a home can be underwater: Rising sea levels, and the flooding likely to come with them, could inundate millions of U.S. homes worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Bruce Amiata

After trees are cut down, they gradually decay, releasing carbon, degrading the habitat, and threatening species long after the cutting stops. These lagging emissions have an important impact on the battle against global warming, a study released today in the journal Current Biology finds. Even with the 30 percent reduction in Amazon deforestation, there was only a 10 percent decrease in carbon emissions, the researchers found.

And even if tropical deforestation had ended altogether in 2010, there would still be 8.6 petagrams (10 to the 12th kilograms) of emissions released into the atmosphere as trees decomposed, the equivalent of five to 10 years of global deforestation. That’s roughly the annual amount of total global emissions, said Abigail Swann, a University of Washington professor who studies climate change and who wasn’t involved in the study.

If you look at that map of carbon emissions, it still looks like the USA is the No. 1 source of emissions, even though the Amazon and South-Central Africa each have an area of higher concentration of CO2.

Looking at the great map at earth.nullschool, I get the impression that China is generally the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2). The carbon monoxide (CO) map might give a better understanding of what is going on with combustion at any one time, since CO is produced by incomplete combustion. The CO output of China is always huge. EPA regulations might be reducing CO emissions in the U.S..

But the CO2 map of China right now shows something i didn’t know about and did not expect: Lots of CO2 is being taken up right now by Chinese vegetation, probably especially agriculture. Late summer is the traditional time that vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere takes in CO2 the most rapidly. Looking at the CO2 map, China and Siberia are absorbing huge amounts of CO2 right now. Siberia still has large wildfires, but those are being overwhelmed by CO2 absorption from vegetation right now.

Tropical Africa is producing huge CO and CO2 readings right now. Hopefully a lot of that is from the annual cycle of agricultural slash and burn practices. But tropical Africa is lit up like a Christmas tree, right now, in CO and CO2 readings, and the CO map shows the characteristic spotted appearance of large wildfires. At least temporarily, the great tropical forests of Africa look like net carbon sources, and have looked like that for weeks.

South American and the southern Amazon are also lit up in both CO and CO2 readings, and look like net carbon sources right now. From the CO map, we can tell a lot of that is from wildfires. Umbrios27, our “eyes on the ground” in Brazil, reports a lot of criminal activity, coming possibly from hirelings of big agriculture in Brazil, deliberately setting fires in dry conditions to deforest areas including national parks. She also says that the Olympics are drawing manpower away from rural areas to Rio de Janeiro and police services are suffering from budget cuts. She posted a link to this Imazon report on deforestation in June:

Yes, San Luis reservoir is one of the biggest pumped water hydro power energy storage facilities in the U.S.

Would the algae gum up the turbines, and make the energy storage less efficient or impossible? Damn, this climate change gets into everything. Ecological effects, happening with only 1 degree C or so of warming or less, appear to be getting worse and worse with no end in sight.

June

In advance of this month’s talks in Geneva, regarding the 1.5 degree target.

Scientists warn world will miss key climate target

“It means that by 2025 we will have to have closed down all coal-fired power stations across the planet,” said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “And by 2030 you will have to get rid of the combustion engine entirely. That decarbonisation will not guarantee a rise of no more than 1.5C but it will give us a chance. But even that is a tremendous task.”

Cate

It’s grim, isn’t it? The article goes on to suggest that negative carbon emissions technology will be necessary, and quotes Peter Wadhams at Cambridge that we have to hope for some kind of technological magic bullet—shades of Bill Gates’ “miracle.”

I don’t despair—-although I have to say that Lovelock (for all his faults) may well be right that we are not intelligent enough to do what must be done, now and fast—but I am fed up with our governments’ pussy-footing around this, out of fear of the corporatocracy.

The problem of climate change can no longer be left to voluntary, market-driven solutions.

The govts of the world MUST take responsibility and control of this now. They have to do what is right for life on this planet, rather than for the bottomless pockets of the plutocrats. Govts must co-operate to plan, organise, direct, and implement a master plan. They must mobilise the national economies and entire human resources of the planet, in a co-operative and co-ordinated attack on this climate crisis.

I believe it can be done, but will it be done? The future of humanity and of all life on earth is literally now in the hands of our govts. Will they have the courage, determination, and good sense to do what they know they must do?

Eight years ago this September, I was at a Climate / Green stuff meeting at our community centre.
While scanning some info available at the entry, the person standing beside me made some sort of comment like ” We don’t have much time to start doing this.” I turned to her and said – “It’s already too late – it’s not that we can’t do this – but – we won’t.”
She thought I was being pretty pessimistic – but the passage of time has’t made me any more optimistic, I’m afraid

Cate

I think there is plenty of good news, “green sprouts”, on the renewables front, everywhere we look, which is why I still believe we CAN do this. One great example from my backyard is the Iron and Earth group which was started by skilled but unemployed oil patch workers in Newfoundland, and now across Canada, to lobby for govt leadership in more training and employment development in renewables. The thing is, the sensible young people at Iron and Earth are forced to crowd-fund in order to stay afloat and get their message out, while the Trudeau govt still pours billions into Big Oil subsidies.

We have the knowledge. The motivation for the general public can also be supplied—just as easily as denial was fostered, so can a fighting can-do spirit be created—that’s all just PR. So what is really lacking is committed and courageous leadership at the very top—at the govt level, to ensure a co-ordinated and effective “war effort.”

June

Yes, Cate, it is grim, frustrating and scary. It takes a lot of effort to stay optimistic these days. Some days I succeed, some not so much. That’s why I’m grateful that Robert has given us this great space to learn, share and support.

BCCS is probably going to be needed. We’re also going to need more. Things like carbon negative concrete and other carbon absorbing materials. Of course, you can’t get there unless you stop burning fossil fuels pretty swiftly.

44 south

As I type my younger brother and his wife are holidaying overseas in Queensland to enjoy the warmth hahaha. All my extended family have flown overseas in the last few years.

A few days ago it was announced that SUVs are now the top selling new vehicles in N.Z.

A week or two ago a top university professor, Chris Defreitas had an opinion piece in our major newspaper, questioning the very notion of non natural climate change!
Doesn’t look like we’ve come very far in wining this war,compared to the dire news our host documents on a near daily basis now.

Mulga Mumblebrain

Oh, De Freitas is infamous. As could have been easily predicted (because we are dealing with the morally insane Right)now that the evidence is mounting up, as disaster follows disaster, clearly validating the science, the deranged and evil (the only word that fits)Right are becoming even more fanatic. Not just in continuing to spew out their demented lies through their propaganda systems, like the Murdoch machine, but in attacking climate science, shutting it down, closing research facilities, vilifying and threatening scientists and attacking renewable energy. It is what they do and how they exist. Until we really face up to what it is that is killing us, we have no hope.

Bob Bristow

I agree that there is an apparent lack of concern in this Southern latitude, and certainly the free E.V charging points that are beginning to appear in shopping malls and filling stations remain vacant. Dr James Renwick, spokesman with attachments to NIWA and Victoria University, has been drawing attention to Climate Change warning bells and dangers recently, but unfortunately the main N.Z press (N.Z Herald, Stuff etc) seem to give equal space to deniers and doubters. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition try and dampen Climate Change media attention down, and they have accepted money from the Heatland Group (and attended HG meetings in the past). I fully agree with Mulga Mumblebrain that these groups are evil and have very sinister links to the Fossil Exploitation business. Until the majority of the populous get on board it will be very frustrating (and increasingly dangerous). Thank God the Scribbler is on the right side, he’s doing a great job, which should be done by the mainstream media. Thanks Robert.

redskylite

redskylite

I agree that there is an apparent lack of concern in this Southern latitude, and certainly the free E.V charging points that are beginning to appear in shopping malls and filling stations remain vacant. Dr James Renwick, spokesman with attachments to NIWA and Victoria University, has been drawing attention to Climate Change warning bells and dangers recently, but unfortunately the main N.Z press (N.Z Herald, Stuff etc.) seem to give equal space to deniers and doubters. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition try and dampen Climate Change media attention down, and they have accepted money from the Heartland Group (and attended HG meetings in the past). I fully agree with Mulga Mumblebrain that these groups are evil and have very sinister links to the Fossil Exploitation business. Until the majority of the populous get on board it will be very frustrating (and increasingly dangerous). Thank God the Scribbler is on the right side, he’s doing a great job, which should be done by the mainstream media. Thanks Robert.

Genomik

By Bill McKibben,
In April, Politico and The Hill reported that America Rising Squared, an arm of the Republican opposition research group America Rising, had decided to go after me and Tom Steyer, another prominent environmentalist, with a campaign on a scale previously reserved for presidential candidates. Using what The Hill called “an unprecedented amount of effort and money,” the group, its executive director said, was seeking to demonstrate our “epic hypocrisy and extreme positions.”

Mulga Mumblebrain

As I say above, the Right can only become more vicious and determined, because that is what they are. For humanity to survive, we’d better recognise their innate destructiveness and react appropriately, and that does not mean meekly voting for the so-called ‘lesser evil’ every few years, only ion order to be betrayed over and over again. For a start sufficient money must be raised so that McKibben can meet these thugs head on. Where are the so-called ‘green’ billionaires?

This is instructive guys. We should be very clear that when the right goes after us, they often go all-out ad hominem in an effort to paint the environmental leaders out to be as bad as or in bed with the fossil fuel industry. This tactic is not aimed at winning any debates. It’s aimed at attempting to cause the environmental movement to implode by losing faith. That’s how they went against McKibben the last time. No surprise they’re trying the same tactics again.

I also want to add that the end goal of 350.org — atmospheric CO2 at 350 ppm or below — is the one every human being on the Earth who wants a livable planet for our children and grandchildren and even ourselves should be striving for. McKibben and his org may be trying to achieve what seems impossible now. But it is the right goal to shoot for if we’re concerned about the multiple harms of climate change. And we all should be very concerned.

wili

“…so let’s think where we are today 2016, in the first IPCC climate change report on came out over 25 years ago–which i’m looking around here that’s that’s longer than some of you have been alive so for a quarter-century gray-haired or no head people have completely failed you and your future so when you see people like me to the front I should really start with a very sincere apology that we are handing you this legacy–so a quarter of a century we’ve known about climate change everything we need to know to act and we have actively chosen to do nothing, worse than nothing actually the carbon dioxide emissions this year will be sixty percent higher than they were in 1990…”

Josh

I really like Kevin Anderson. He says it like it is, and really seems to be personally trying to limit his own environmental impact. Seeing one of his lectures on YouTube a few months ago was what really got me understanding the mess we’re in – along with other excellent sources such as this blog.

Kevin needs to help to work to drive a strong policy escalation on mitigating climate change. His message could serve that goal or it could derail it, lending credence to whacky, harmful and unlikely to be helpful solar radiation management or atmosphere and ocean heat redistribution schemes. History may not judge kindly.

Colorado Bob

Colorado Bob

Weather officials said the average rainfall for the whole of August fell on Skopje in the space of just two hours. ………………. “This is a disaster, we have never experienced such a thing,” said Skopje’s Mayor Koce Trajanovski.

Rain began falling at 5:30 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday and stopped only around 9:30 on Sunday morning, with the peak of the storm in the middle of the night, around 3:30 am.

Reports said the water level reached as high as 1.5 metres (five feet) in some of the affected areas, which were being combed by Macedonia’s police and army for survivors and other victims.

Especially badly hit were villages on the outskirts of the capital including Smilkovci, Singelic, Stajkovci and Aracinovo.

“Everything was a mess. Televisions, the fridge, the sofa, everything was floating… it was a nightmare,” said Baze Spriovski, a 43-year-old in Singelic, who remained without electricity.

‘Really horrific’ :

Macedonia’s weather service said 93 litres per square metre fell in two hours on Skopje — equivalent to the average for an entire month of August.
Meteorologists said more than 800 lightning strikes were recorded in the first two hours of the storm, which went on for about five hours in total.

“There were thunderbolts with lightning almost every second. It was really horrific,” said Biljana Joneska, 62, in Skopje.

The hits are coming hard and fast. This looks like a rain bomb specific to this city. But we had a large and extensive flood in basically the same region two years ago… If you keep getting cumulative impacts like this, it starts to get really tough to recover.

Cate

Meanwhile, farther north in Scotland, “unseasonable winds cause disruption” as autumn-style gales arrive early, with the usual effects of travel disruption, assorted minor property damage, an historic ship at dock blown over and swamped, and one rescue at sea—thankfully, no lives lost.

Edward

I’d like to add myself to the long list of people that really appreciate the thoroughness and quality of the content here. You do such an excellent job of keeping up with all the climate related impacts. I don’t usually comment because there are so many great contributors here in the comments also; this blog is A+++ and someone usually covers my sentiment.

Perhaps you edit out the deniers but it is so refreshing to come here and read your articles and the comments without having to skip over that kind of nonsense.

Overall, I’m not optimistic anything will be done. I’m a retired engineer and I’m so surprised that the majority of the people I used to work with seem to be on the denial side. It really perplexes me how so many people that I feel are very intelligent just won’t look at the overall evidence and are caught up in the denial web. I often have lunch with my former co-workers and any time I bring up global climate change they kind of just scoff at me. It’s really disappointing.

Hopefully, there will be progress in the area of mitigation due to the efforts of people like you. Keep up the good work and thanks again for your magnificent effort.

I do edit out the deniers and some other stuff that distorts the conversation as well.

My opinion is that more and more people will be concerned over the coming years. They will try to get something done — from the individual to the policy level. They will tend to meet resistance from conservatives and the related fossil fuel interests. This is the big conflict of our time, in my view.

And Conservatives (and some liberals — look what Warren Buffet did in Nevada. If it wasn’t for HIS money…) will do everything they can to prevent individuals from taking action but instead legally compel them to stick with the present way of living, dependent upon fossil fuels.

I heard FL Gov Scott signed a bill into law requiring all houses to be on the grid.

Earlier snowmelt periods associated with a warming climate may hinder subalpine forest regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to the results of a new study.

The findings, which were recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, predict that this shift in the timing of the snowmelt could result in a 45 percent reduction of snowmelt period forest carbon uptake by mid-century.

Carol

I’d like to see headlines like this in the mainstream media. Seems like they’re happening all over, and more frequently. People need to be shaken out of their apathy. How long can the media ignore the cause?

wili

It seems like that to me, too. Does anyone know of any recent studies tracking long term trends in the frequency and intensity of these sudden, intense rain events, so we could say more than “they seem to be getting more intense” on social media?

The problem with salt: Road salt contamination a plague across the state

In 1974, the National Wildlife Federation warned that rock salt used to melt snow on roads and highways damages the environment.

The federation outlined in a March edition of one of its publications that between 25 and 50 percent of the road salt runoff infiltrates soil and enters groundwater. Not only did the federation say the salt directly affects ecology, it contaminates human water supplies and can lead to health risks.

On top of health impacts, the federation also noted the economic side effects of replacing damaged equipment, increased infrastructure maintenance and the costs towns must endure to find uncontaminated water.

In New York state, the dangers of road salt contamination extend beyond the millions of tons of salt applied to roads each year. There is a long, sordid record of state and municipal salt piles leaching salt into the water table and contaminated wells for, in some cases, miles around.

Adirondack Council Director of Communications John F. Sheehan said that a great amount of environmental damage comes from salt-pile runoff…
…
In Jefferson County, the town of Orleans has had one of the region’s most notorious salt contamination cases. While the Orleans situation is one of many in the region, residents there have been the most vocal. Since the 1980s, a DOT salt barn on Route 12 in Fishers Landing has caused widespread water contamination that has affected the private wells of around 50 residents.

A salt contamination issue in Alexandria Bay actually served as the precursor to the Orleans saga.

Syd Bridges

– Thanks for that, I didn’t know Dow’s 245T (Agent Orange) had such a historical precursor.

– The road salt speeds ice melt in order to get traffic moving again, and is another example of using toxic/caustic material to ‘save’ time — which is the main reason so much carbon/fossil fuel is burned in the fist place.

Jay M

solvay process to produce soda ash economically create CaCl as a byproduct which was sold as rock salt
solvay process in US was succeeded by mining NaCO3 when deposits were located. Solvay mfg was gone by 1986 in US
another process like low end asphalt and synthetic rubber that sent the internal combustion engine along it’s many merry roads

Syd Bridges

Last year I wondered whether this year would be the last time we would see CO2 levels below 400 PPM at Mauna Loa, or could we see a few weeks below 400 PPM next year? Now it looks increasingly likely that we saw the last of them in 2015.

My projections for monthly averages from a few months ago:
August 404.1 (I think the actual will come in around 403, falloff from peak is happening more and faster from July forward_
September 402.8
October 403.1
November 403.4
December 403.7
with annual average of 404.66 for 2016

I work from the numbers at co2.earth that come over from MLO Scripps and NOAA.

I think/hope the annual average will come in under my projection. I am watching and projecting in an attempt to spot changes in the overall levels that might suggest the IEA falling emission reports are right (ppm down or flat or reducing rate of increase), or that carbon sinks are changing function (up or down), new sources of atmospheric CO2 coming on line (permafrost, etc. all these expected to go up).

September-October is more likely to be in the 400 to 402 ppm CO2 range if you’re considering a 3 to 4 ppm jump year on year for each month. +3 ppm CO2 for September = 400.5 ppm CO2 monthly average approx. +4 ppm = 401.5 ppm CO2 approx for September. The same range for October yields 401.2 ppm CO2 and 402.2 ppm CO2.

Given past months YoY adds, it appears that the 3-4 ppm range is standing up so far for 2016 and we don’t, as yet, have an indicator that this range will be significantly deviated from. August week 1 at 403.4 ppm average is on the 4 ppm boundary for YoY week to week comparisons. The first two weeks are likely to yield a 403.15 range or thereabouts. The next two should pull the average closer to 402.5 to 402.8 for the month.

Unless something significantly changes, I think your back of the napkin projections are likely considerably biased toward the high side (as earlier August projection shows). 403 is likely still a bit too high, but more marginally so. September deviates by +1.3 to 2.3 from trend (implying a +5.3 ppm jump which would be a pretty extraordinary excession). October shows a similar bias of +4.9 YoY approx.

It’s worth noting that so far for 2016 v 2015, month on month rises have only exceeded 4 ppm in two cases —

April at 4.16 and June at 4.01.

Also, the shift toward La Nina (or neutral) should eventually aid in ocean carbon uptake somewhat. So as the months progress the tendency should be closer to the 3 ppm level. If wildfires are significant in the September-October timeframe in Indonesia, Africa and the Amazon, this would tend to bump that range up a little. And human heating could do that. But the variable Nino forcing is likely starting to pull the overall range downward at this time. It doesn’t mean we won’t see another month or two near or above 4 ppm YoY month to month. It’s just that that probability falls with time since we are at or just past the CO2 response high water mark in the September to October timeframe. 5 ppm is a significant excession from trend and is a low probability at this time.

Kevin Jones

Yes, smallbluemike & Dear Robert. Carl Sagan famously said we humans are significance junkies. At the NOAA and Scripps sites atop that Hawaiian mountain we get a great and heroically derived database.. Thanks to Charles Keeling and so many other cohorts we now have a great global network of carefully calibrated trace gas monitors. The REAL numbers to watch are year-on-year and decadal averages. Globally. Growth rates on annual and decadal temporal thinking. They do appear, as do sea level rise data, to be heading towards heaven.

Colorado Bob

“Being from Vegas, I’m familiar with heat, but this is hot on a whole new level,” 17th SB Command Sgt. Maj. James Richardson said. “I didn’t know humidity could come and go throughout the day, it’s really weird. When the wind blows from the desert it’s not too bad, but when it blows off of the coast, it’s unbelievable.”

Colorado Bob

The Nile River has reached its highest levels in more than 100 years, Al Jazeera reports. As a result, 13 of Sudan’s 18 provinces have been hit by flash flooding and heavy rains. The floods have caused at least 76 fatalities, destroying over 3,200 homes in the province of Kassala — an area hit the hardest. The United Nations reports that 80,000 people are impacted by the flooding to date.

Colorado Bob

Colorado Bob

Zika concern: Florida’s Scott responds to state cuts for mosquito control

Republican Gov. Rick Scott on Sunday defended cutting some state funding in Florida to pay for mosquito control amid increasing cases of the Zika virus in his state.

Under Scott, state aid to mosquito control programs was reduced 40 percent in 2011, from $2.16 million to $1.29 million. Scott also ignored pleas from fellow Republicans that year when he cut a special $500,000 appropriation for the Public Health Entomology Research and Education Lab in Panama City Beach, which was founded in 1964.

Colorado Bob

This Zika story the algae story in Florida are linked. Florida is like America’s “crack house” , where the operators don’t give a fig about tomorrow, but how much cash did we rake and take today.

The first great real estate bust in American was ( Drum roll please ) Florida real estate .

The entire Laissez-faire, “free market” thinking is under assault, for the costs it never dreams of. . This why the Trumpets are so mad, but sadly they chose the lazy way. No education , no hard brain work.

Now they’re old and mad. Well welcome to the party , I was young and mad.

Trumps voters are all the people who didn’t go to San Francisco, or Woodstock, who didn’t get a date for the prom. They know they missed something big , and they hate it. Well screw them , we ain’t going back to Emmit Till .

Facing the imminent advance of Iraqi forces, militants from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) have looted, bulldozed and torched the Qayarah refinery, and are trying to weaponize oil from nearby fields.The desperate scorched-earth tactics highlight the extent to which the IS group’s battlefield losses are undermining its aspirations to create an oil-fueled quasi-state.http://www.iraqoilreport.com/news/torches-qayarah-oil-complex-dumps-crude-tigris-19470/

The terror group “Islamic State” has taken control of six of the eight major dams in Syria and Iraq. It is systemically exercising control by using water. The decline of “IS” now actually poses another kind of threat.

IS is specifically using the natural resource as a weapon, observes the conflict researcher Tobias von Lossow at Berlin’s Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). “On one hand, IS is damming the river to retain water and dry up certain regions, thereby cutting off the water supply to villages and communities. On the other hand ,it has also flooded areas to drive away their inhabitants and to destroy their livelihoods,” said von Lossow in an interview with DW.

Man-made disaster

IS did not come up with the idea of using water as a weapon. In World War I, the Belgian town of Niewpoort opened the gates of the Yser River at high tide and systematically flooded Flanders. The weapon proved successful at halting the advancing German army. About 25 years later, a similar plan came to a tragic end: To stop the invading Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese ruler Chiang Kai-shek had the Yellow River dikes in the province of Henan blown up on June 9, 1938. It was expected that the Japanese army would drown. Instead, an estimated 800,000 people drowned in the massive floods and the advancing Japanese were not halted.

[Ps US Gov/Nixon had a plan to bomb the dikes protecting the city/region of Hanoi in SE Asia.]

Ps: As WW II was coming to an end, Adolf Hitler basically ordered Berlin’s subway/train tunnels flooded in order to slow the advancing Russian Army. These same tunnels happened to be filled with thousands of Berliners seeking shelter from Allied bombing.
Luckily the tunnels remained dry.

Spike

In WW2 the Germans did not expect the Allies to land on the eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula because they had flooded large areas of low lying ground, both just behind the beaches and along the Merderet River in the centre of the peninsula, and so the coastal defences on Utah Beach were some of the weakest in Normandy.

Colorado Bob

This election is turning point in World ,and American history, if one sits it out , shame on you. That we have these goofy ideas that in a world of 7,5 Billion people needs less government is simply crazy.

Colorado Bob

Colorado Bob

– Retained radiant heat by many degrees F.
– Also an example of how much radiant heat accumulates from an external source — the sun.
– Any suitable exposed surface will do the same — vegetable or mineral.

Nearly 400 deaths from flood, wind, heat, lightning, tornadoes, wildland fires, and hurricanes last year. That’s 20 times ISIS. The 176 deaths from floods is more than twice the 30 year average — an increase likely in many ways attributable to climate change related impacts. More rain bombs = more flood death risk.

– SE Asia — Bad news multinational players on the Mekong River. That region has been plundered and re-plundered by so many.

MADNESS ON THE MEKONG: HOW DAMS ARE KILLING THE LARGEST INLAND FISHERIES IN THE WORLD

…
Malaysian real estate company Mega-First MFCB has selected the worst possible site for the dam which has blocked the only channel (out of the seven channels) that is deep enough and wide enough for large fish to migrate, a channel that has provided an all year round effective fish passage around the rapids, rocks and waterfalls over the millennia.

The Don Sahong dam construction launched in January 2016 has already stopped the water flow along the Hou Sahong channel (see the video) disrupting fish navigation and depriving hundreds of fishing families of their livelihood.

Earth-moving machinery, trucks and several thousand Chinese workers from construction giant Sino-hydro, which signed the contract with Mega-First Malaysia, have occupied Saddam Island and built a bridge to the mainland.

The acting director of the Cambodia’s Inland Fisheries Institute, Chheng Pen told the Ecologist “The fish are trapped in dry season. It became a killing zone for two months. The migratory fish could not move upstream deeper into Lao because the water was too shallow.”

Kevin Jones

Thanks, wili. From Insights into Earth’s energy imbalance from multiple sources: The current Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) is estimated to be 0.9 +/- 0.3 W m2 from 2005-2014. This range is from Hansen’s 0.6 to this 1.2. The imbalance being the difference between the historic and actualized warming to date and what’s in store. From this I glean future warming to which we are already committed is as great to 2x as great as Hansen has suggested. Robert? Others?

Kevin Jones

Kevin Jones

Well I didn’t word that thought properly. 190 to 270 gave Earth a 5C surface temperature increase. Accepted climate sensitivity says it should have been a 3C increase between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago if we’d gone to 380. And we only had 270for that. PRE-industrial.

Kevin Jones

wili. You might be on your way to a Nobel Prize for Sanity & Logic. I believe you are onto something.But ‘gird your loins’. Einstein did say, Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

With regards to current warming, there’s little to disprove the 1.5 C TCS, 3 C ECS, and 6 C ESS established ranges (CO2 doubling) Hansen uses and I think happen to be the most accurate.

1.2 C this year and in a context of a 2010 to 2020 decadal average that appears to be trending toward 1 to 1.15 C is about what we’d expect from a decade that should end at around 503 CO2e on current path and given expected TCS values. Note that we’d expect 1.5 C at 560 CO2e approx in the TCS. With 3 C at 100 years and 6 C long term.

Worth noting that warming will tend faster as GHG continues to accumulate, will tend to slow as GHG levels off and we pull into longer term sensitivity trends, and will tend to slow further during ice sheet destabilization periods. Also, the TCS, ECS, and ESS figures are for set values of CO2 or CO2e. Carbon feedback sensitivity should probably be given as a separate value.

Seems to me there’s some muddying of the water and a bit of vagary going on here that’s not quite helpful.

Kevin Jones

Dear Robert. I never thought of myself as colorful. Every effort I’ve attempted on your wonderful site has been in the spirit of sharing and learning. (I thought we’d already been through and covered this) What wears on my mind is this: The specificity of claims as to how hot the average (2m) surface temperatures will rise by such and such a decade is utterly unknown by leading scientists. If Dr. James Hansen has a clue (and I adore that man) he has shown that there is a possibility of overheated and expanding tropics running into high latitude frigid freshwater runoff.
And this creating a net surface cooling as the oceanic heating continues. How many times have you helped in elucidating this? Many. And I thank you for it. Your mud is my mud. Stephen Schneider wisely called the future a ‘dirty crystal ball’.

Well, Kevin. We know about Earth System Sensitivity and a related proxy for long-term warming due to paleoclimate science. We know about Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity and likely ranges for medium term warming due to some great work in the models being done by scientists. And we understand Transient Climate Sensitivity pretty well.

The various challenges to climate sensitivity science have been proven wrong for the most part if you read the relevant literature. And the current warming is well within the IPCC predicted range. There’s strong agreement on ECS warming for this Century and there’s a growing consensus to use paleoclimate and model data to provide a decent long term construction for warming past this Century.

And we know all these things because, well, scientists did the work.

As for wags in temperature due to glacial melt, we can thank Hansen for that as well.

I think we’ve got a good view. It’s complicated. But it’s likely to be close to the mark. And, yes, paleoclimate does produce about a 6 C warming over many hundreds of years at a doubling of CO2 and we know this because scientists did the work.

Thoughtful discussion is good and welcome. Attacks on the science and undermining what is a strong, credible way of looking at the problem is not. Nor are wacky comparisons or out of context data-sets.

They just use the plain term Climate Sensitivity. Does that mean they are talking about what robert just referred to as Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity? They say that their study of the PETM moves the numbers for “Climate Sensitivity” up from 3.3–5.6 to 3.7–6.5.

In general, I would love to hear anyone’s take on that article, at least the parts that we have access to.

In short, the study appears to have used ECS modeling to get a 5.1 C approx climate sensitivity for each doubling of CO2. This makes sense to me due to the fact that the ‘slow feedback’ ice sheet response is left out of most ECS models. During the PETM, pretty much all the ice is gone so it’s not a factor for models to consider. This may skew the ECS models to show ‘greater sensitivity with higher heat’ when in fact it may just be due to the fact that ECS models do not measure the influence of ice sheet loss on climate systems.

Paleoclimate for pretty much every epoch implies a 5-6 C sensitivity for each doubling of CO2. This is the ESS number I keep bringing up.

So, Wili, this study appears to be using traditional model ECS to correlate PETM warming.

The current traditional ECS range is 1.5 to 4.5 C warming per doubling of CO2. I’ve added my own filter to this due to the fact that ECS doesn’t really include all the feedbacks (so called slow feedbacks). The rough filter is — that ECS is most likely to be accurate for the 100 year timeframe but not as representative beyond that point. And this is due to the fact that long term feedback mechanisms are generally less represented or not included in ECS measures.

Now the study appears to be applying an ECS understanding to warming during the PETM. What they apparently found was that as the Earth warms up, it becomes more sensitive to warming more rapidly.

They found that such sensitivity increased to a range of 3.5 to 6.7 C per doubling or about 5.1 C. Ironically, this is very close to the 5-6 C per doubling Hansen indicated in his own paleoclimate research.

What may be happening is that the study is taking in some of the long longer term feedbacks by applying models to the PETM warming environment. This skew may be easier to find in an ECS model of a system where all the glaciers have basically melted (respresenting a good chunk of the so-called slow feedbacks).

In other words, the fact that they find sensitivity increasing with temperature may be more an issue of the ECS model set than anything else.

At least that’s my take on it.

If you look at correlation — pretty much any paleoclimate period basically conforms with 5-6 C long term sensitivity. The Pliocene shows 2-3 C warming at 390 to 405 ppm CO2. The Miocene shows around 4 C warming at 400 to 500 ppm CO2. The mid to late Eocene shows about 6 C warming at about 600 ppm CO2.

There’s your approx 6 C ESS right in plain sight. In my view the model studies are more just an effort to get the ECS models to work on longer time scales. We don’t really have ESS much in the way of ESS models. Moreso just the paleoclimate data that points to a given rise in temperature at a given level of atmospheric CO2. So, eventually, as more feedback mechanisms are added to the ECS models in a functional way, the ECS models should come to represent ESS more and more.

There’s a lot of work involved in getting these models right. But until that happens the visible discrepancy between paleoclimate and implied ESS and current ECS model understanding will generate a degree of dissonance.

“If you look at correlation — pretty much any paleoclimate period basically conforms with 5-6 C long term sensitivity. The Pliocene shows 2-3 C warming at 390 to 405 ppm CO2. The Miocene shows around 4 C warming at 400 to 500 ppm CO2.”

That means 3-4 C of warming is already baked in the cake. Only 1.2 C of that rise is present.

June

Earth Overshoot Day—the day on which people worldwide have officially used up more natural resources like air, food, and water than the planet can regenerate in a year—has come early…The 2016 threshold was hit on Monday, making it the fastest pace yet…That’s five days earlier than last year, about five weeks earlier than in 2003, and months earlier than it was in 1987, when it fell on December 19.

Leading climate scientists have warned that the Earth is perilously close to breaking through a 1.5C upper limit for global warming, only eight months after the target was set.

The decision to try to limit warming to 1.5C, measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures, was the headline outcome of the Paris climate negotiations last December. The talks were hailed as a major success by scientists and campaigners, who claimed that, by setting the target, desertification, heatwaves, widespread flooding and other global warming impacts could be avoided.

Environmental records shattered as climate change ‘plays out before us’

However, figures – based on Met Office data – prepared by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University show that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and peaked at +1.38C in February and March. Keeping within the 1.5C limit will be extremely difficult, say scientists, given these rises.

Article continues at link above.

Just holding our breathes here about forest fires like last year. The Carpenter Rd. fire was 4 miles s/w of me when the firefighters managed to turn it…and the float/scoop water planes have been flying over to a fire 10 miles west over the closer mountains and returning to Loon Lake for more the last few days…

Jay M

Jay M: Spokane is in the flats to the south often with a very different weather pattern excepting during huge storm fronts. Go 40 miles N into the mountains & W some on a ridgeline facing the last group of N to S mountains before dropping into the Columbia River.

Very localized as these storms hit the Huckleberry Mountain ridges/Stensgar Mtn. to the west that pushes instant t-storm pillars up. Throw in 90’F+ temps on this side… Friends 15 miles north never heard thunder. Closest bolt I saw was a count of ‘one-one thou…’ before it rip/crack/snapped the air.

Reblogged this on Hypergeometric and commented:
This is the kind of thing that’s expected of a +3C world, although the idea of it being a threshold phenomenon is a bit unrealistic. So, it’s expected that these sinks might, overall, start releasing their sequestered Carbon, one here one year, another there another year. But if the biggest sinks start releasing theirs first, well, this is one of the Climate Surprises the IPCC and the U.S. National Climate Change assessment talk about. And they are not at all good.